1. Field of Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relates to a system, a program, and a method of calculating a degree of guiding an eye-flow of an image. More specifically, exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to an eye-flow guiding level calculating system, an eye-flow guiding level calculating program, and to an eye-flow guiding level calculating method, capable of miniaturizing system devices and decreasing the cost thereof, while effectively enabling a suitable eye flow for the eye-flow of images.
2. Description of Related Art
Like a typical consumer catalog of goods, a document having an optimum layout design, in which layout elements (for example, a title, an image, and a text) are arranged to be readily noticeable, is commonly referred to as a “visual document.” The creation of the visual documents requires a significant amount of specialized knowledge, and thus it is difficult for an average person to create the visual documents. For this reason, in most cases the creation of the visual documents is entrusted to professional graphic designers having a specialized expertise and experience.
Generally, when a designer creates a visual document, the semantically consecutive layout elements are typically arranged in the readable direction in which the eye-flow of a reader flows (hereinafter, referred to as an eye flow), whereby a readily readable layout is realized. For example, if one article includes of a title, an image, and a text, preferably, the image and the text are arranged in a sequence corresponding to the eye flow. Therefore, when the designer arranges the layout elements, the predicable eye flow is anticipated and the layout elements are arranged accordingly. That is, the designer creates the final layout through repetitive trials and errors. Since the designer usually predicts the eye flow based on intuition or experience, it is difficult to quantitatively predict the anticipated eye flow.
The related art discloses techniques for detecting the eye flow. Related art techniques include a document design evaluation system disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-175290, an eye-flow information analyzing device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 6-162, and an image recognizing device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-50051.
In the invention disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-175290, a system of evaluating the design of web pages includes a web data receiving unit to receive data of a web page to be evaluated, an eye-flow information receiving unit to receive eye-flow information of a user viewing the web page, and a design evaluating unit to evaluate the design of the web page based on web data received by the web data receiving unit and eye-flow information received by the eye-flow information receiving unit.
In the invention disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 6-162, the movement of eye is detected by an eye movement detecting device, the time sequential change of eye detected by an analyzing device is analyzed in a frequency region, and the contents of an image to be displayed, which is inputted from an image input unit, is analyzed in a display content analyzing device. Further, both of them are combined in a combined analyzing unit, and thus highly reliable data with respect to the observable mental state of a test subject and an objective evaluation for the image is obtained.
In the invention disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-50051, when an object manuscript for direction recognition is a manuscript D2 in which white letters are expressed on a highly concentrated background image, created histograms H3 and H4 are inverted to form histograms H1 and H2. And then, based on the inverted histograms, the recognition of a manuscript direction is performed.